Gareyev replied, “Vladimir Vladimirovich, we have considered this question in great depth and our assessment is based not only on the Alliance’s deployment of forces and its capabilities, but we have also drawn extensively on both signals intelligence and human intelligence. We have called in every favor we are owed and risked exposing our top assets in the West to get at the truth of what is really going on. More than that, we have war-gamed and conducted operational analysis on several different scenarios. Finally, I have put all that mass of information to one side and asked myself the key question: what would I do if I was Admiral Howard, the SACEUR?”

“And what would you do, Mikhail Nikolayevich?”

“My view is that SACEUR’s intention is to surround and neutralize our Baltic Fleet in Baltiysk, their base in Kaliningrad, and be prepared to conduct an amphibious landing on the coast of Estonia. Meanwhile, the NATO Corps in northeastern Poland is poised to conduct an invasion with three divisions into Lithuania. All this would be preceded by a massive air campaign to knock out our air defenses and neutralize our air force. Effectively, NATO is threatening an envelopment of our forces in the Baltic states by sea, land and air, with the aim of forcing our withdrawal from the Baltics.”

“What about deception?” probed the President.

“Very difficult for NATO,” replied Gareyev. “I know from my own visit to SHAPE and discussions with senior NATO staff, when they were still allowed to meet us in Moscow, that the NATO military authorities are allowed to do nothing without the agreement of the North Atlantic Council. That makes it very difficult to conduct a deception operation because surprise would be impossible to achieve. Any strategic military decision must be authorized by the NAC. That is the NATO convention. As soon as a plan is put on the table, we will know about it within hours . . . Whatever security they try to put in place.”

“But,” mused the President, ever the conspiracy theorist. “Surely . . .”

“I too have asked myself this,” General Gareyev interrupted, again something he would not have dared to do even a few weeks before. “I have concluded that NATO, as an organization, is incapable of the lateral thought required for successful maskirovka, or deception, hence the total surprise we achieved three years ago when we invaded Crimea. The situation is compounded by the NAC, which insists on retaining political authority for all operations. NATO has always had the problem of being too large, but once they expanded to twenty-eight members they became impossibly large. The politicians thought that the more members the better but, as we know, Vladimir Vladimirovitch, less can often be more.”

The President looked thoughtful. “And our conventional response?”